


Parting the Clouds 6 -- The Carrier

by Derin



Series: Parting the Clouds [6]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:22:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 19,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2694629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Animorphs are still settling into their new dynamic with their alien guest when Jake learns that the yeerks are planning something at the hospital. Something big. But that quickly take a back seat when, on a mission, Jake falls into a Yeerk Pool and picks up a parasitic passenger.</p><p>The Animorphs need to work fast, because the enemy in Jake's head has not only his morphing ability, but his memories. And it's desperate to escape, using Jake's knowledge of the team to pull them apart piece by piece in the effort. Can the Animorphs save their secrets and their leader both? And even if they do, can the team recover from the damage left by the enemy wearing Jake's face?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to JustAnotherGhostwriter, who has generously loaned her awesome betaing skills and general support to this project from start to finish and without whom this would almost certainly not exist (and would certainly be much worse), and CompanionofaTimelord, as well as my innumerable temporary beta readers. Also thanks to Featherquillpen, who came up with the series title.

“So how was school?” Dad asked me as I crushed two small white pills into powder with a mortar and pestle.

“Fine,” I said. School wasn't the problem. Alien invaders were the problem. Well, okay, my grades were slipping a bit, but that was to be expected. “Have you decided about the raccoon yet?”

“Yes. We'll release him on Friday.”

“Alright.”

Silence, but for the sound of my dad's pen and my mortar. In the old days, I'd fill the silence with chatter about school and life and stuff. But recently, my life was all fighting aliens. And he could be one of them. It was safer to play the stereotypical sullen, silent teenager than to risk letting anything slip. Let him think we were drifting apart. Let any alien that might be in his brain think it was normal.

I tipped the powder into a small bowl of mince, stirred it into the meat and carried it over to one of the cages. We had a wolf, again. Infected injuries from barbed wire. I gave it the food.

And of course, there was the matter of the other alien we had stashed in the woods.

I didn't go to visit Ax all that often. I lived too close to him and I didn't want to draw attention by disappearing into the forest all the time. I didn't visit Tobias all that much, either; he had his own little meadow, but he could safely come by the farm if he needed anything. I was worried, though. Ax had set up an old television and cobbled a computer together from what he called 'primitive human parts', which seemed to keep him amused and out of trouble, and he hadn't reported any problems with malnutrition or poisons, but still. He was a blue alien centaur living close to humans. I wanted to trust Tobias to look out for him, but it still seemed to be asking for trouble.

“Need any, um, homework help?” Dad asked, trying to fill the silence.

“No, I'm fine.” I marked the wolf's medication off the chart and started counting out pills for a large snowy owl.

“Your new study group helping, huh?”

I was careful not to allow myself to pause or jump. Study group. The Animorphs. “Yeah.”

“That's good. It's... good, Cassie. You should have friends. Just remember that your mum and I love you, okay?”

“I know, Dad. I love you too.”

I reached into the owl's cage and neatly tipped its head back to force a pill down its throat. Night birds. Did we need night birds? Maybe. We each already had two bird morphs except Ax, and without knowing whether there was a limit on morphs we didn't want to double up on skills too much. But a nightsight and flight combo was bound to come in handy eventually. I'd talk to the others about it. What we really needed was andalite morphs, to press home our cover as andalite warriors. But the only andalite we had was Ax. We couldn't all be Ax.

Visser Three's host... that would be a great morph. We could confuse the hell out of his soldiers. But the chances of getting close enough to acquire him without blowing our cover was nearly nonexistent. Besides, it would be a little hard to get consent, and the concept of morphing another sentient being without consent was... uncomfortable.

I finished up my chores and headed inside. I had homework to do. I couldn't let my grades slip too much. It’s hard to fight aliens when grounded.

If I’d realised just how much trouble we were about to get into, how little free time we were about to have to keep up with things like that, I probably would’ve put more effort into that homework.


	2. Chapter 2

“So let me get this straight,” I said.

The Animorphs had gathered in the barn. Marco lounged on a bale of hay in one corner. Rachel paced. Tobias watched us all from the rafters. Ax kept trying to put random things in his unfamiliar human mouth, only for whoever was nearest to pull them out of his grasp. Jake perched awkwardly on an empty cage. The awkwardness was due to the nature of the story he'd just told, which was mostly him being very, very stupid.

“Let me get this straight,” I said again. “You morphed an insect. Alone. Without supervision. After my experience with the ant.”

“It was fine, Cassie.”

<I told you the simplicity of the host's brain is no barrier beyond the anchor threshold,> Ax said smugly. He was using thought-speak because his mouth was full of wood chips. He glanced up at Tobias (in response to private thought-speak, I assumed) and spat them out. Ax generally didn't come to barn meetings – he didn't like being in morph more than he had to be – but this time, Jake had insisted.

“So you had no trouble with the cockroach brain?” I asked.

“No, it was pretty easy apart from the panic response.”

“Your problem might've been ant-specific, Cassie,” Marco said.

“Or social insect specific,” Rachel added.

There was a momentary pause where nobody brought up the possibility that it was Cassie-specific.

“That's not the point,” I said, “that was insanely dangerous. You morphed an unknown morph, by yourself – ”

“For practice! You're always going on about how important practice is!”

“In your house? Around a known – a high-ranking – Controller?”

“Tom was out.”

“Oh, well that's alright then. Because people never come home unexpectedly.” I narrowed my eyes at him. Jake wasn’t normally so reckless.

“I bel-ieve it is human custom... cusss-tom... to offer privacy in sleeping quarters. Vah. See. Pri-va-see. Ssseeeee.” Ax could never resist playing with sounds when he was in human morph, any more than he could resist tasting things. It was a habit I found slightly unsettling, because I'd never noticed us doing that with the senses and abilities of our morphs. Maybe we were all doing it. Maybe we were all terrible at imitating animals and didn't notice. He certainly didn't seem to see how odd it made him sound. “Prince Jake should be safe if the Controller obeys this custom. Say-fuh.”

“Uh, Ax? Don't call me Prince,” Jake said. “I'm nobody's Prince.”

“Yes, Prince Jake.”

“Well,” Marco said, “you morphed a cockroach in your room. What happened next?”

“Well there I was on the floor, when suddenly to door opened and the light turned on. The cockroach brain freaked out, of course. I got out of there and ran for the kitchen.”

I was aware that I was pressing my palms against my eyes. “So much for privacy, huh?”

“It wasn't Tom. It was my parents. Anyway, so I scampered behind the fridge.” He bit his lip.

“And?” Rachel prompted.

“Well, they came down...”

“Uh-uh-uh,” Rachel said, raising a hand to stop him. “You're leaving something out. I know how you sound when you're leaving something out.”

He sighed. “Nothing important. I just found this little matchbox to hide in behind the fridge. Well, I thought it was a matchbox.”

“What do you mean you thought – ” I began, but I was interrupted by Marco's laughter.

“A Roach Motel? You walked into a Roach Motel?”

“Right onto the sticky paper and, man, I could not move. Glued my legs, my antennae... very frustrating."

"You know, you could do commercials for the Roach Motel company," Marco suggested. "Take it from me, Roach Boy, these things really work."

“So how'd you get out?” Rachel asked.

"Well, I sat there for a while, trying to squirm out, but it didn't work. I was stuck good. But it was okay, because as I sat there I realised I could start to make sense of some of the vibrations I was hearing. Some of it was sound. People speaking."

"What people?" Marco asked.

"My parents. My dad twisted his ankle playing tennis, which is why they'd come home early. They'd gone into my room to look for the Ace bandage I have in my drawer. Anyway, what could I do? I wasn't about to get stuck in roach morph. And I could tell my parents were up in their bedroom. So I demorphed."

<Wait. Weren't you behind the refrigerator?> Tobias asked in thought-speak.

"Yeah. And it was very tight. But as I grew, I could push the refrigerator out an inch at a time. Still, I thought I was going to suffocate back there. And then, just as I was getting human again, my mom walks in."

We all paid attention to that.

"What?" I demanded. "What did she see? What did she say?"

"Well, all she could see was my head. It was normal, fortunately. And what she asked me was, 'Jake? Why are you back there? And while we're at it, why do you have the top of a Roach Motel stuck in your hair?'"

Everyone got a good laugh out of that image. I shot Jake a smile. Being mad at him wasn't going to help, and we'd all taken stupid risks.

Marco was the one to cut to the heart of the matter. “You still haven't told us why you were morphing a roach. And don't give me that 'I was just trying it out' routine."

Jake bit his lip. “I've been watching Tom. You know, subtly. His yeerk is getting pretty important. I think he's just below Chapman in rank now.”

That was big. Chapman, or his yeerk Iniss Two Two Six at any rate, reported directly to Visser Three.

"Tom is careful about not letting my parents or me overhear anything suspicious," Jake continued. "But he does make phone calls using our phone some times. I've been checking the automatic redial when he's done. So I know some of the people he's calling."

Marco laughed. "Cool. Jake the superspy. Nice trick."

<And who is Tom calling?> Tobias asked.

"Doctors. Five different doctors. I looked them up in the phone book. They all practice at the same hospital. The same wing of the hospital, at something called the Berman Clinic. Berman is one of the doctors Tom calls."

It took a few minutes for the facts to sink in.

"Wait a minute," Rachel said. "Are you saying the yeerks are running that hospital? Or at least a part of that hospital? Why would they want a hospital?"

“They're going to use the hospital to infest host bodies,” Marco said. “You check in to have your tonsils out or to have a cast put on your broken arm. You check out as a Controller."

That was bad.

That was very bad.

“I thought the whole point of the Sharing was to get voluntary bodies?” I asked. “I mean, Visser Three backed down to keep Chapman happy. Obviously they have a lot of involuntary slaves, but for them to switch to a strategy that has practically no chance of gaining any voluntary hosts at all...”

Rachel shrugged. “Maybe they only need so many voluntary hosts. Maybe they're getting impatient.”

“Well, whatever they're doing, we need to find out about it,” Jake said. “So we need some nice, tiny, secret morphs. Thus the roach. There's a big meeting in two days and at least two of the doctors and Tom are gonna be there.”

“That sounds relevant,” I remarked.

“Yes. Yes it does.” Jake grinned. “So we need to practice.”


	3. Chapter 3

"This would be a great horror movie. Or at least a book," Marco said. "Roachman."

I tried to smile. I didn't like cockroaches. I knew, logically, that they were harmless, that they were not better or worse than any other insect. But I hated them. I didn't think I could stomach becoming one. Besides, there were other reasons why all becoming the same thing was a bad idea.

“I don't think we should all be the same insect,” I pointed out. “Five roaches might arouse suspicion. We need variety.”

“What were you thinking?” Jake asked.

I showed them.

“A fly?” Marco asked. “You want to be a fly?”

“I want to go home and exercise my horses. But I think it makes sense to be a fly. The greater variety of insects we are, the less noticeable we are. Also, without knowing what our morph limit is, I think we need to maintain variety in our morphs. Eventually we're going to hit the limit and when that happens we want the most varied stock possible to work with.”

Everyone looked at Jake. I still wasn't sure exactly when he'd become our leader, but he was good at it. Better than any of the rest of us would be, anyway. He shrugged. “Anyone else want to try the fly?”

“I'm up for some fly,” Marco said. “No offense to your beautiful-looking roach.”

Jake didn't even dignify that with a response. He just dumped a cockroach into Rachel's hand.

I quickly acquired the fly's DNA, feeling it go sluggish in my hands. I'd looked up cell diagrams, trying to figure out how the acquisition worked, and I'd just come away more confused. The DNA is in a little sac called the nucleus, which floats in the cell. It needed to get through a barrier, float through some liquid, and then get through another barrier to get to my hand... and then it had my own cells to worry about. That couldn't be right. There was no way some alien technology had been designed to do that to Earth animal cells. Although I hadn't actually seen andalite cells to see if they were very different to ours, the chances of them being similar to ours were ridiculously small. And with the fly, the DNA would have to actually burrow through the exoskeleton. No.

No, there had to be some kind of... scan... of the whole animal. Ax didn't seem to know much and had flat-out refused to tell me the rest, which was a pity. But I'd figure it out. Somehow.

I passed the fly to Marco. Within a minute or so, we were all ready to morph. I closed my eyes and focused. Closing my eyes wasn't necessary, but I didn't really want to see the others morphing.

Thinking about eyes turned out to be a mistake, as they were the first things to change. Two huge spheres exploded out the sides of my face. They were lidless; I had no way to block out the fractured, multifaceted images around me. Compound eyes. It was like watching a hundred little televisions at once. I saw seven different pictures of Rachel's face staring, horrified, at mine, while a hard brown crust crept over it. Nine pictures of legs exploding out of Marco's chest. Six of Ax falling forward as his front legs suddenly twisted as their joints changed.

Then everything suddenly got big, and the others became so far away as to be irrelevant. I felt the pull on my shoulder blades as delicate wings pulled out of them, and then I didn't have shoulder blades.

I could think. Simple brain or no, I could think fine.

I braced for the insect mind.

Panic, Jake had said. Maybe the fly would be like the cockroach. And not like the ant.

The fly wasn't panicking. But it was very, very aware.

I stopped trying to force the compound vision to make sense to my human mind, relaxed, and let the fly do the work. It was strange. The fly was the first animal I'd ever morphed for which shape had no relevance. If it was bigger than an insect or spider, I just didn't care what it was. What was important was movement. Was something moving toward me? How fast? Would I hit it? I could see, but it didn't feel like sight. And it was only supplementary to the vibrations caused by air moving against the tiny hairs on my body.

That wasn't going to do. I'd need to learn to use the compound eyes as much as I'd need to learn to hear words.

<Alright, Jake's going to try talking now,> Tobias said.

Nothing meaningful happened before Tobias said, <Anybody catch that?>

<No.>

<Nada.>

<Nothing.>

<We're going to try again.>

We were there for a good ten minutes before I started being able to tell Jake's voice from the random noise. <Wait a minute, I think I heard something.>

A pause. More talking.

<He said 'hello',> Tobias said.

<I got sound but not words,> Marco said.

<We'll try again.>

Eventually, we could all make out the sound of his voice, then words. Then tone. It wasn't the most natural way to use the fly's senses, but we did it. Then we demorphed. Which wasn't pleasant.

<You have such wonderful animals on this planet,> Ax said when he had returned to his normal form.

"Cockroaches and flies are not wonderful," Rachel said, shuddering a little. "I mean, I'm sorry, but I don't like those bodies."

"They're easy to handle, though," Marco said with a glance at me. _Not like ants._ That was, admittedly, a relief.

"You know, guys, this mission doesn't really require all of us to go," Jake said.

"Look, I just said roaches are disgusting," Rachel protested. "I didn't say I didn't want to do it. We need to know what's going on with that hospital. The best way to do that is to crash this leadership meeting of The Sharing. And the best way to do that is with roach and fly morphs. End of discussion."

"Yeah, but I can do it alone," Jake said, avoiding my enquiring look.

"What's going on with you?" Rachel asked. "You know we're the Five Musketeers. One for all, and all for one. Six Musketeers now," she corrected, looking at Ax.

<What are Musketeers?> Ax asked.

No one answered him. We were all paying attention to Jake.

"Normally, I'd be all for staying out of trouble," Marco said, "But I'm just curious about why you're acting this way."

"It makes sense. One of us can go it alone."

“You brought this to the group, Jake,” Rachel said. I wished she hadn't said so in as many words – the last thing I wanted was to encourage people to run around behind the groups' back. But it was obvious what was wrong.

“Are you worried that Tom will get hurt?” I asked.

Jake looked down at the ground. "Look, he is my brother. You guys are my friends. What if we get into it and it comes down to a fight?"

Marco raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. "We don't hurt Tom, that's the first thing."

"It's not that simple," Jake said. "He's involved in this big time. He's one of them. And he would . . . look, he would kill any of us."

<Not Tom,> Tobias said. <The thing that lives in his head. Never Tom.>

Jake sighed. "I had this dream. I know this is stupid. I know dreams don't mean anything. But I've had this dream a couple of times."

"So? Tell us," Rachel prodded.

"Okay, but don't laugh. In the dream I'm in my tiger morph. And I'm stalking Tom. Following him. On his trail. I'm feeling the tiger's eagerness. You know, that predator feeling. The hunger. The desire to kill."

Tobias turned his head away, but didn't interrupt.

Anyway, in the dream, I'm hunting my own brother. Only, when I get close ... he turns around. And it isn't Tom anymore. It's … look, I just don't want anything to happen to Tom," he finished awkwardly. "It's not just about what might happen if there's a fight. It's… I think Tom is important to this whole hospital plan somehow. I think maybe he's in charge. If we manage to stop this thing, who knows what they'll do to Tom? I mean, maybe Visser Three just kills Tom's yeerk. But we've all seen Visser Three in action. He likes to make examples out of anyone who fails him. He could kill Tom."

Rachel whistled softly. "If we succeed, Tom fails. If he fails, Visser Three may kill him."

"That's about the way it is, yeah."

"So, what do we do?" Marco asked.

"We forget this mission," I suggested.

"And leave the yeerks in control of a hospital? A little factory for making Controllers?" Jake countered. "Why? Because my brother may be hurt?"

I met his gaze. “Yes.” We might risk our own lives to protect the planet, but Jake's brother was what kept Jake holding onto the team. We were going to save Tom. That wasn't negotiable. It was simply a matter of when and how to do it without causing unnecessary risk to Tom or us.

Jake hesitated. I knew what he was stewing over. He wanted to agree, to go ahead with this plan unless his brother could get hurt and, if necessary, back off to protect him. But how could he justify backing off for selfish reasons? If it was Chapman's head on the block, it would be a regrettable risk, but one we wouldn't even consider not taking in order to protect all the innocents that would go through that hospital and come out as slaves.

"We don't have to make a final decision now," Marco said. "We can go in. Learn what they're up to. Decide then what to do about it."

Finally, Jake nodded. "Marco's right. This is just a spy mission. There's plenty of time to decide what to do, when we know more about what they are up to."

The group started to disperse. I put a hand on Jake's arm. “Can you help me move some feed barrels? I'm not strong enough to do it on my own.”

The feed barrels in question were three large plastic drums filled with animal pellets. By the time we'd pulled them clear of the wall, we were alone.

“We'll save Tom,” I told him.

“I know.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

I shrugged and got the broom. As I swept stray pellets out from behind the barrels, Jake spoke up again. “It's just, every day is another day that he's trapped, having to live through being a Controller. And every day is another day that he's at risk. What if Visser Three does decide to kill him if this hospital thing fails? Or if anything fails? Or if he's just in a bad mood? Sometimes I just want to grab him and tie him up in the shack for three days. But then what? We don't know enough about the yeerks to fake being Tom for three days. We couldn't hide it. There'd be a huge search, my parents would be taken... and what do we do with him afterward?” Jake shook his head vigorously, as if to clear it. It occurred to me that this was probably the sort of thing he sat up thinking about when the nightmares wouldn't let him get back to sleep. “But here's the thing – I can accept that we can't save him yet. I can accept that we're leaving him in danger to keep us, and my parents – possibly all of our parents, depending on how this war pans out – safe. I don't like it, but I can accept that we have to be patient. But at the same time, we have this hospital thing. And everyone just seems to accept that Tom should be our highest priority here, over all the other people who go through that hospital, over whatever evil plan is being cooked up in there. So, what, he's less important than us, but more important than hundreds of other people? How, exactly, does that pan out? How is this fair to anybody involved – to us, or to Tom, or to the innocent people we're trying to protect?” He looked at me as if he expected me to have an answer to that. The earnest, desperate eyes of a kid trying to save the world. In a couple of months he'd gone from cute, carefree jock to traumatised warrior leading an untrained team in a ridiculously high-stakes war.

I didn't have an answer. Not really. But I had to try.

“Nothing is fair about this,” I said gently. “But we're all human, Jake. We're all fighting for what's precious to us. What is it that Marco says, every time he threatens to quit? 'These people aren't my family, I don't know them.' Rachel fights to protect us, and her other friends like Melissa, and her little sisters. Ax fights for andalite honor, and to avenge his brother. You fight to save yours. We're fighting to protect a planet here, Jake, I know; but we're human. We're not mentally equipped to really deal with planet-wide 'right' and 'wrong'. Our perspective is, as a matter of pure biology, smaller than that, and no matter how much we struggle to protect the whole of our planet, no good can come of ignoring the fact that we're people, not gods.”

“You can do it,” Jake mumbled as he braced his shoulder against one of the feed barrels to help me push it back. “You have this whole big-picture, save-the-planet thing going.”

I couldn't help but laugh at that. “That's because I haven't had anything close to me threatened yet.”

Except Jake. Except the Animorphs.

The Animorphs were always threatened.


	4. Chapter 4

“How long do you think this will take?" Rachel asked. She checked her watch. "I set the VCR for two of my favorite shows, but I forgot to tape the movie of the week."

"I'm taping it in case you miss it," I said. It was important to keep up a good TV watching schedule. We needed to maintain the illusion of a normal life when we spoke to people at school.

It was dark out, but not very late. The moon was up, but hidden by the clouds. We were walking along the street, doing our best to look like a normal bunch of kids just hanging out. Normal.

<This sucks,> Tobias said from high above. < I'm half-blind at night. Especially without moonlight. I should have gotten myself stuck in an owl body. Owls are so cool. Aside from the fact that some of them try to kill and eat hawks.>

"How can you ever run in these bodies?" Ax wondered. "Two legs? It is absurd. Surd. Ubsurd. Ubzerd. Not even a tail to help you stay up." He was, of course, in his human morph.

"You know, Ax, now that you mention it ..." Marco started gyrating wildly, like a guy out of control. "I only have two legs! I'm falling … falling!"

"See? I knew it must happen sometimes," Ax said, adding, "Happen. Hap. Hap. Pun."

I wasn't sure if Ax knew Marco was being funny or not. Ax might have a very dry sense of humor. Or he might have no sense of humor at all. I hadn't figured it out yet.

"There's the place," Jake said. It was up ahead, at the end of the block.

It was a residential neighborhood, with older houses and a few kind of low-budget shops mixed in. You know, thrift shops and car parts places and small restaurants. Our target was a single-story, whitewashed building. There was only one door, and the windows were high up, narrow and long. They were blocked off so that no one could see inside. There was a small parking lot with a dozen cars in it.

Over the door was a sign: "The Sharing. Building a Better Life."

"Yeah, right," Marco sneered. "A better life for slugs from outer space. You notice the guy standing by the door? He looks like he's ready for trouble."

A very large man stood by the door, muscular arms folded over his chest. But we'd expected that. Jake, Marco, Rachel had scoped the place out ahead of time.

"Okay, we cut down this alley," Jake said. "That building down there is abandoned. The basement is empty and unlocked. That's where we morph."

The basement was dark and damp and smelled of mildew. It probably used to be part of restaurant. There were still some old tables strewn around. There were also a lot of old beer bottles and bits of garbage.

"Wonderful," Rachel said in a whisper. "This whole Animorph lifestyle is so glamorous."

Tobias fluttered in through the open door. Then we heard a thump.

<Ow! Man, who put a pillar there? Banged my right wing.>

"Great. This is the guy who's supposed to be looking out for us," Marco grumbled.

Ax had instantly begun to morph back to his andalite body.

"Come on, let's do this and get it over with," Rachel said. "I'm going to be a roach in a filthy basement. My mother would be so proud if she knew."

"Wait," I said, eyes on Rachel. "We agree on how this works, right? We're not looking for a fight. This is a spy mission. No one do anything dramatic, like morph into an elephant and go on a stomping spree."

Rachel laughed. "Absolutely. Spy time. Stealth is my middle name."

"Okay." Jake cleared his throat.

"Let's morph already," Rachel said. "Come on. I'll miss the movie."

"Roaches and flies. We'll be right at home in this dump," Marco said as he began the transformation. "You will keep the rats from eating us, won't you, Tobias?"

<Hey, I may not see that well in the dark, but I can still catch a rat, light or no light. I am the ratkiller of the universe.>

"Ax? You ready?"

<Yes, Prince Jake. I am fully andalite and ready to become your roach.>

We morphed. Two flies, three cockroaches, scattered across the concrete.

<Wow. That is one big beer can,> Marco said.

A blue and white can towered over us, curving away into the sky.

<Let's, um, scurry,> Jake said. <Ax? You keep track of the time.>

<You know, if this wasn't so gross, it would be kind of cool,> Rachel said. <Stairs? All right! A little vertical rock climbing.>

The roaches certainly had no trouble with stairs. They moved as quickly vertically as they did horizontally. Up the riser. Over the edge. Zoom, to the next riser. Up. Over. Across. To the top of the four stairs.

<You know, you guys still give me the willies,> Tobias said. <You should see yourselves. The urge to step on you is pretty strong - if I had shoes. I never did like roaches.>

<This from a guy who disembowels live mice for lunch,> Marco said.

<Don't knock it if you haven't tried it,> Tobias shot back.

We had reached the threshold. I darted out into the alley, trying not to lose sight of the roaches. Or look too swattable.

<I'm going airborne,> Tobias said. <You're out on the sidewalk. Turn left. There's better light out here so I'll be able to watch you from the top of the telephone pole.>

<Okay, we'd better spread out. Don't forget, these are Controllers. Yeerks. They believe there is a group of andalite warriors running around loose. In other words, they'll be on the lookout for morphs. So act like normal bugs.>

< Maybe one of you roaches should crawl inside an open box of cereal,> Marco suggested. <I had that happen once. I almost ate the bug. Yuck.>

We fanned out and moved towards the building. The roaches found a crack to crawl through; it was just a little too narrow for us flies. So Marco and I circled around until we found a door to crawl in under. We didn't need to worry nearly as much about attracting attention as they did. Roaches might have the advantage of maneuvreability, but flies were a lot more easily ignored.

<We're in, Tobias,> Jake called to him. <Get somewhere safe.>

<I'm cool,> he said. <Good luck.>

<We're in, too,> I reported as Marco and I flew past a couple of humans who completely ignored us. <Also, creepiness aside, this is the best spy morph ever.>

I could smell human sweat. Also traces of rotten food, nothing strong enough to be appetising, but a nice background aroma. Being a fly is weird.

I could hear speech. I couldn't tell if it was a familiar voice; being able to recognise words didn't mean I could recognise the same tones I could as a human. I concentrated on the words.

"The day is here at last. It is time to strike the decisive blow in the invasion of Earth."

< What is this, a yeerk pep rally?> Marco wondered.

Before I could stop myself, I started giggling (well, thought-speak giggling), and pretty soon everyone except Ax was laughing silently. It was very nervous laughter.

<There's a car pulling up outside here,> Tobias reported from outside. <A limo. And there are two other cars with it, full of very tough-looking dudes.>

<What are they doing?> Jake asked.

<Getting out, now. Like six guys. They have guns! I can see them under their coats. Now there's a guy getting out of the back of the limo.>

<Who is it? Or should I say, what is it?>

<He's a human. He's staggering a little. He looks like a normal guy, but all the others are acting very nervous. And ... I know this sounds dumb, but I get a bad feeling from this guy.>

<They're coming our way now, Tobias,> Jake replied. I couldn't hear anything, but then, I wasn't on the ground. <Thanks for the warning.>

I tried to use my eyes, but they were hopeless at any kind of distance. All I could tell was that several men had arrived and were marching through the room.

"My brothers-in-arms," some loud, booming voice said, "I present to you, our leader. Visser Three."

There was a gasp from the group. There was a silent gasp from us, too.

Visser Three?

"I see that some of you are surprised," a new voice said. "Surely you must know that I can morph a human, as well as any other body."

<Oh, man,> Marco said. <Visser Three can morph a human?>

<Certainly,> Ax said. <Just as I do. Humans are animals, after all. You have DNA.>

The voice we now knew as Visser Three spoke in a hard, curt tone. It was odd, hearing his words. We had only heard him thought-speak before. Now he had a voice. And a human body. I didn't dare get close enough for a good look with my weak fly eyes – we'd mostly been ignored by the human-Controllers, but Visser Three would probably be a lot more paranoid about animals.

"You have done well recruiting human doctors and nurses, so that we now control the hospital facility. This is sufficient to fulfil part one of our mission – freeing future Controllers from our healthcare obligations. Without this financial burden, we can accelerate our rate of infestation.”

<Healthcare obligations? Are the yeerks bribing hosts with health insurance?> Marco asked, bewildered. <There's no way that can be right.>

“But this brings me to the second part of the mission," Visser Three said. "Until now this secret was known only to me and a very small group."

I filed the healthcare question away to ponder later. This sounded important. The room was almost totally silent, listening, anticipating.

"The second part of the plan is even more important than the first. In a few days, the governor of this state will have some minor surgery performed. His secretary is one of us, and she has steered him to our facility. He will check in for the minor surgery. When he checks out ... he will belong to us."

<No,> Rachel gasped.

<What does it mean? What is a governor? Is this some sort of prince?> Ax asked.

<Yeah. A prince. The governor controls the state police,> I said. <And the National Guard. And the schools.>

<It's worse than that,> Rachel said grimly. <Don't you guys ever pay attention to politics?>

<What are you talking about?>

<Don't you know? Our governor is getting ready to run for president next year. A year from now, there could be a Controller in the White House.>

<A White House? What does all this mean?> Ax asked.

<It means that one of them could be the most powerful man in the most powerful nation on Earth,> Jake said.

<And that would be the ball game,> Marco said.

<Then ... all would be lost?>

<Yeah, Ax. All would be lost.>


	5. Chapter 5

< Let's bail,> Jake said. <We've learned all we need to know. Back to the crack before somebody gets stepped on.>

I turned and headed towards the door, trying to fly about waist height – away from feet, below eye level. I could not believe what I had heard. It was insane! If the yeerks succeeded, we were toast, pure and simple. As long as it was a secretive war between us and yeerks who did not want to be discovered, we could maybe stay alive. But if all the power of the state police were turned against us, too? But part of me couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't targeted world leaders right away, why they were messing about with schoolkids and lonely housewives at all.

Suddenly, Jake's voice rang out. <Someone almost stepped on me! Look out!>

"Visser! Forgive my interruption. But there are several small insects here!"

A general murmur from the crowd, then one voice saying, "Don't worry, they are only cockroaches. They are everywhere on this planet."

"Fool!" Visser Three exploded. "Do you think andalites cannot morph creatures so small? Someone kill this fool for me."

BLAM! BLAM!

I felt the world spinning around me. Someone had been shot!

Could it have been Tom?

A new rush of air overhead. Somebody was swiping at me. Apparently they weren't just focusing on cockroaches.

I fled.

WWHHHAAAMMMPP!

Hands clapped right behind me. A rush of air pushed me forward. The roaches were taking the brunt of the attention. I hoped they'd be okay.

"Kill those insects!" Visser Three screamed.

<Everyone for himself!> Jake yelled. <Spread out. Run! Get out of here! Let the bug brains guide you!>

I let the tiny fly brain take the reins, prompting it only with a general direction. A hand! A piece of newspaper! How could the door be so far away?!

<Aaaahhh!> Ax yelled.

<Ax! Are you okay?> Jake asked.

<Yes. Yes. Barely.>

<Is anyone near an exit yet?> Jake asked.

<I'm on some guy's sock,> Rachel said. <He doesn't know I'm here. When he gets out I'll... yep, I'm clear.>

I could see the light of the door Rachel's ride was using. I powered forward. Made it! <Me too.>

<Ax? Marco?>

<I am out,> Ax said.

<Marco?>

<Yeah, Jake.>

<Where are you?>

<I am in a place where I really, really hope no one flushes, Jake.>

<You're in a toilet?>

<They have a bathroom. It seemed like a natural place for a fly. I'm chilling for a minute, then I'm going to try for the hole in the wall where the pipe goes. How about you?>

<I'm not so good. I'm under a newspaper, but they're still stomping all around. Sooner or later they'll stomp here. I have to make a run for it. I'm going to try for the door. Once I get outside they'll never get me in the dark.>

That didn't sound safe. I wanted to go back in after him, but there would be nothing I could do, other than get myself killed. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything except cling to the wall and hope I didn't have to hear Jake's dying screams in my head. <Good luck, Jake,> I told him privately.

A few second of silence. No chaos... no chaos was good. Then –

<Marco! They have bug spray!>

Jake's warning was immediately followed by a rabble of exclamations. “There's one! There's one!” He must've made a run for it. He was in there alone. He would have the whole room on him.

<We have to go in for him,> Rachel said.

<There's nothing you can do,> Marco snapped. <People who are out, stay out.>

"That got him!" a voice said.

"Don't crush him," Visser Three yelled. "He may demorph to save himself and we'll have ourselves an andalite!"

<Jake!> I called. <Jake, are you okay?>

<Gnn.>

<Jake, where are you?!> He must be near the door; the crowd were pushing it open in their attempt to get him. Or give him space to demorph. I couldn't tell which. Everything was just a moving, blurry mass.

More movement, behind me; a streak across the sky. Tobias! He dove in, somehow wheeled around several pairs of stumbling feet, and sped out, skimming along the ground. <Got him! I really, really hope it's him.>

<They have guns!> I reminded him, moments before the first shot went off. But by then he was between buildings.

As a fly, I was the fastest to find a safe place to demorph, go osprey, and go looking for Tobias and Jake. It took a minute or two at most.

A roach that's poisoned badly enough can die in a minute or two.

They weren't hard to find; a red-tailed hawk, staring hard at the rooftop a few buildings over. I landed next to him. <Jake? Jake, please be alive.>

Nothing. I nudged the little cockroach. One leg twitched. I switched to private thought-speak. <Jake. You have to demorph, okay? You have to be human. Remember? You're a human boy, with brown hair that needs a cut and straight teeth except for that one on the left that's a little bit crooked. You have human hands, five fingers each, nails kept short because of basketball. You're tall, Jake, with long legs – two legs – and big feet. Remember?>

A second osprey landed on the roof next to me, followed a few seconds later by a bald eagle. The cockroach began to grow. Yes!

<Good work, Jake,> Rachel said. <You can do it.>

<You do not want to be stuck as a roach, man,> Marco added. <Roaches are seriously gross.>

Ax landed. <Prince Jake? Are you alright?>

<I... think so.> Jake's exoskeleton melted into his still-mostly-roach body. It was disgusting, but I made myself watch. Hands grew. Hair grew. Soon, he was human.

<You want to chill for a bit before going bird and getting out of here?> Marco asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

We chilled for a bit. He went bird. We got out of there.


	6. Chapter 6

Marco somehow got us a date for the governor's operation. He insisted it was an elaborate spy operation worthy of James Bond, but Jake told me privately that Marco had just posed as a reporter and asked about the Governor's schedule. There was one big, mysterious gap in it. A gap perfect for a hospital visit.

It didn't solve the Tom problem.

Visser Three had had a guy killed for an offhand remark about insects. What would he do it this big, important plan fell through? But could we afford to do nothing, to let somebody who might well be the next President become a Controller?

There had to be a way around it. I just needed to think. Humans saw false dichotomies everywhere. There was something about the way our brains worked that saw everything as a zero sum game. Us versus them. Win versus lose. Tom or the governor.

Not always, but a surprisingly large amount of the time, there was a way to have a cake and eat it too. People just hardly ever bothered to look for one.

What were our options?

Attack the hospital. Delay the plan. Possibly get Tom killed. Bad choice.

Stay out of the way. Don't endanger Tom, give the yeerks the governor and... whatever healthcare advantage the Visser had been talking about. Bad plan.

Rescue Tom before the plan went ahead. That... might work, actually. If he was high-ranking enough, it might distract the yeerks as they went on a manhunt. We could, in theory, end up disrupting the plan and freeing Tom. But then what? Where do you hide the former host of a high-ranking yeerk? And if it failed, if they found him before the yeerk died, we'd probably be ensuring his death, especially if his kidnapping doomed the hospital plan. Guarding him until he was free would spread us thin, make destroying the hospital plan harder if his kidnapping didn't distract enough yeerk manpower. Still... there was potential, there, for a win-win scenario. It was far too high-risk, but worth workshopping. Might turn into something better than either of the two obvious plans. I'd have to talk it over with the others.

In the end, though, it was Marco who came up with the most workable plan.

“We intercept the governor at the hospital,” he explained, “launch an attack if we have to, or sneak in, whatever. And we show him Ax.” He jerked a thumb at Ax, who was chewing on a piece of hay.

“That... could work...” Jake said slowly. “I mean, it's really risky but...”

“Oh, right, I forgot we do sane things, like swim into alien water tanks without checking their filtration systems in advance, and somehow manage to set up our own ambushes in abandoned quarries.”

“This doesn't really help with the Tom thing,” I pointed out.

“No, see, there's the best bit. If this whole thing goes public then we can just tie Tom up somewhere for a bit until the yeerk dies and the yeerks are going to have a whole lot of bigger problems to worry about than going after some ex-host. I mean, this guy's the governor. We could just be like, 'we have the ex-host of a high-ranking yeerk here, he probably knows a lot of secrets and he might need protection'. Job done.”

“That... could work,” Rachel said. “That could actually work.”

“It sounds risky,” Jake said, but there was excitement in his voice. “We're going to need a careful plan...”

“Why do.... doooo-do-do.... why dooo we not go toooo the governor beforehand? Hand-duh. Before he is surrounded by yeerks?” Ax asked. “We could alert.... allerrrt-tuh... all your leaders, with me as proof of aliens. Zuh.”

“No,” everybody else said simultaneously.

“Why not?”

“Ax-man, don't you watch movies?” Marco said. “You never want to let the government get their hands on the friendly alien. It always ends badly.”

“Humans haven't contacted aliens before,” I agreed. “We... wouldn't be able to guarantee your safety.”

<They'd lock you up and throw away the key,> Tobias added. <Me too. Probably all the Animorphs.>

“If we can get them yeerks, that's fair enough,” Jake said. “But we can't show you to them unless we have a way of getting you out of there. So one on one is really the only way any of this is going to work.”

“We get Ax in there, convince him to isolate his secretary or whatever for a few days, then he has her testimony on the big evil alien invasion,” Jake nodded.

“The problem with this plan is everything else about it,” Marco said.

“It's your plan!” Rachel said.

“Doesn't mean it doesn't need work. How are we supposed to get him alone long enough to do this? How are we supposed to protect him from Controllers? How are we supposed to stop his secretary getting rescued by Controllers? It's not like we can kidnap the governor.” Marco caught the glint in Rachel's eye. “Really, we can't kidnap the governor.”

“He'll have resources. And people who know how to deal with that stuff.”

“Who could be Controllers.”

“We're overthinking this,” Rachel said. “The real mission here is to stop him being infested, right? So we do the explanation thing, trash the hospital for good measure, and see if he needs more protection from there.”

“Trash the hospital?” I asked. “It's going to be full of innocent patients, you realise?”

“Well we'll do our best not to hurt anyone, but it's got to go. They're just going to try this sort of thing with somebody else if we can't get a warning out.”

“You'll do your best not to hurt anyone while crushing walls and hospital equipment beneath your mighty elephant bulk.”

“Do you have a better way of putting a stop to this if plan A fails?”

“... No. But trashing a hospital doesn't just hurt people inside it. Other people are going to get sick and not be able to get help. There's got to be a better way to do this. Maybe go for the Controller doctors?”

“None of this will matter if plan A works,” Jake said.

“Yeah,” Marco muttered. “Because our plans always work great.”

We split into 2 teams – Jake, Ax and I to go for the governor, and Rachel and Marco to run any interference and provide backup. Tobias was, of course, on sentry duty. He'd found the Governor for us in about two minutes of window-peeking. The hospital itself was on the very edge of town near the forest, so if things did get sticky then there wouldn't be too many innocent bystanders. Except all the sick and injured people inside, of course.

<Remember guys, he has a couple dozen guards hanging around. Well, I think they're guards. People, anyway.>

I nodded, even though Tobias couldn't see me, and tried to ignore the creepy feeling of cockroaches on my arm as I strode through reception trying to look like I knew where I was going. I found an elevator and pushed the third floor button with one trembling finger.

<Don't worry, Cassie,> Jake said in what I was pretty sure was private thought-speak. <Not long now. We get in, we explain, and... if we're lucky, this can all be over.>

Easy for him to say. He was a cockroach. His connection to Tom made him too dangerous to send in human, and Ax's ability to imitate humans wasn't good enough yet; if we got into trouble, I was on my own. If we were interrupted demorphing, I was going to have to talk a bunch of secret service people or whatever from shooting at them. I was going to have to talk them out of shooting Ax, regardless. The whole thing was poorly handled. We needed time. We needed a plan. A good plan. A plan that was more detailed than 'somehow try to convince the governor that he needs to listen up about aliens'.

Three men in suits were loitering outside the Governor's room. I walked past them with barely a glance, turned a corner, and found a bathroom with an “out of order” sign. Perfect. I pushed on the door – locked. With a glance around to make sure we were alone, I muttered what was going on into my sleeve, then slid Jake and Ax under the door. A couple of minutes later, there was a cry of surprise, a thud, and then a tense-looking, fully human Jake opened the door and let me in.

There was a man lying motionless under the sink, Dracon beam still loosely held in one hand. I pocketed the weapon as I searched for a pulse. It bulged awkwardly in my shorts; no way was I going to be able to sneak it back past the Governor's guards.

<He is alive,> Ax assured me. <I merely knocked him unconscious. As Prince Jake's brother is a Controller likely to be involved in this operation, I worried that it might be him.>

“It isn't,” Jake said, “but that's good thinking, Ax. Whoever he is, he's somebody's brother or son or father.”

Sometimes it was hard to remember that the people attacking us weren't our enemies.

“Guys,” Jake said, “this is what he was guarding. Check it out.”

The partition between two of the stalls had been knocked out. Taking up the two stalls, wedged awkwardly in and bulging out into the room, was a small jacuzzi. It emitted a slightly nauseating smell that stirred unpleasant memories within me. Some sort of thick, dark liquid was moving around in it, churned by jets. No... not by jets. By something moving inside. By big, swimming slugs, writhing around and over each other.

<Yeerks,> Ax said with that distinctive hatred that shone through any time he spoke of them.

“For the Governor,” I breathed. “And his staff, probably. But there are so many. Just how many people do they expect to infest?” I leaned forward for a closer look. I hadn't really had a chance to see yeerks before – down at the yeerk pool I'd been a little preoccupied for sightseeing.

“They're not going to get any,” Jake said, a dangerous edge in his voice. In one hand, he held the power plug for the jacuzzi. The motor had been ripped away from the unit, the wires all cut or torn, but it was still attached. “Ax? What do you think would happen to all those yeerks in there if the temperature of the liquid suddenly went up to say, one hundred twenty degrees? And the liquid was all agitated?"

Ax looked puzzled. <The heat and agitation should destroy them.>

“Perfect. You guys keep an eye out, we might have tripped an alarm.”

“Jake? What are you doing?”

“Buying time. Can't infest our leaders without the yeerks to do it.” He pulled the power plug for a hand dryer out of the wall and replaced it with the jacuzzi plug. Then he got to work reattaching wires. I handed my Dracon beam to Ax, pulled off my shorts and tshirt, and concentrated on the wolf inside me.

I was barely done when the bathroom door was pushed open to reveal four humans... human-Controllers, I assumed... all armed with guns. “Andalite!” a woman shrieked as, just behind me, Jake switched on the power.

Guns were being raised. No time to waste. I leapt, closing my powerful jaws over an arm wielding a gun. A line of light lanced over my shoulder, hitting another Controller. I didn't have to apply any pressure – my weight was enough to knock my Controller over. He dropped the gun. One of them was screaming for backup into a radio; I crunched it between my jaws. <Rachel, Marco, we tripped an alarm and we're gonna be surrounded any second!> I screamed.

<Already on the way,> Marco replied. <People are freaking out down here. Curious George goes to hospital!>

More people were packing into the corridor outside the bathroom. The Governor's guards! <Ax, these guys probably aren't Controllers,> I reminded him. <Jake, are you in a form that can run fast?>

No response.

I turned around. Jake was lying face-down in the jacuzzi.

<Jake!> I leapt over, grabbed a mouthful of his hair and dragged him out. I could taste blood. Did I do that? No, it was a wound. A bullet wound? Had it gone into his brain?! <Guys, Jake is down. We need to get him out.> Jake's eyes were open, but unfocused. I nudged him with my nose; no response. But he was breathing. I could smell his breath.

<So I'm guessing you guys are behind all the guns?> Marco asked. Outside, amid the gunfire, I could hear bewildered swearing and the angered bellow of a gorilla, followed by the snarl of another wolf. At least Rachel hadn't tried to go elephant on the third floor.

<My shooting arm is no longer working properly,> Ax reported. Using a detached stall door as a shield, he backed away from the now-distracted guards over to where Jake and I were wedged behind the jacuzzi.

<Can you run?> I asked, lifting Jake by one arm.

<Yes.> Ax knelt and helped me drag Jake over his back. Ax was bleeding in a few places, but none of them looked dangerous in the short term, assuming andalite biology was anything like mammalian biology. He used his good arm to haul one of Jake's arms over his shoulder and hold him in place, then stood. <How high are we?> he asked as we headed for the door.

<Third floor, why?>

Ax didn't answer me. <Tobias. We are near the Governor's room. Are there any one- or two-story buildings in the immediate vicinity?>

<Uh... about 300 feet North of the room, the hospital building continues as a single story building.>

<Thank you.> He bolted out of the room and up the corridor. I followed. Rachel, also in wolf morph, appeared at my side; Marco loped along behind us. Bullets followed us, but the guards peeled away as we moved away from the Governor's room. The Controllers didn't have a governor to protect. When they caught up with us, they wouldn't be so easy to shake.

The corridor ahead of us turned left. Ax didn't. He simply charged into the room ahead. We followed.

<Ax,> Marco said, <where are you – >

We got into the unoccupied hospital room just in time to see Ax leap through the glass window and fall.

<Ax!>

I rushed over to the window. Ax had landed on the roof of the single-story part of the hospital and was still running, three-legged, his front left leg held up away from the roof at an odd angle. Marco picked up Rachel and me in one arm and easily climbed down the side of the building to join him just as Ax leapt down to the ground. We followed him into the parking lot, where he put Jake down between a couple of cars.

<I do not know how to check human vital signs,> he said, distressed.

“I do,” I said as I completed my demorph. I crawled over to Jake between the cars. “He was breathing pretty lightly in there, I think he might've inhaled some of that muck. Jake, you okay?” I pressed two fingers to his neck. “Can you answer me?” Strong pulse. As I spoke, he looked at me. Good, he was aware. “Jake, you have a head wound. I need to check some of your vital functions. If you can talk to me, please do.”

No response. He just stared at me.

<Cassie, can you carry him?> Marco asked. <We need to move.>

I nodded, and focused on horse.

<You will need somebody to cover your escape,> Ax said, sounding woozy.

<You and me then, Ax,> Marco said. <You should morph something to heal first.> By the time he finished speaking, Ax was already sprouting multiple strangely-coloured bird wings.

“And me,” Rachel growled, newly human. “Let's see how these guys like an elephant.”

<No.> I stood still while Marco hauled Jake onto my back. <We need one of you in the air. I can only carry Jake so fast like this, and if he falls...>

<You'll need a gorilla,> Marco said. <Go, I'll go osprey and follow.> I was already running before he started morphing, trying to balance a barely-conscious weight who could hardly hold himself on as I bolted through gardens and down roads. Couldn't take corners too sharply, or Jake might fall. Couldn't leap over anything, or Jake might fall.

<You guys realise a whole bunch of Controllers saw Jake back there, right?> Marco asked as he took to the air, his voice already faint.

<They saw an andalite bandit in human morph,> I said dismissively. But he was right. <And they wouldn't see his face with all that muck on it even if Ax hadn't been in the way.>

<How are we not all dead yet?> Marco grumbled.

<That's a good question,> Tobias said. <What happened in there?>

<Long story.>

Horses can canter a pretty good distance before they tire. We were well into the trees before I slowed. Alone. I hoped.

<Cassie, a deep ditch to your left.>

I followed Tobias' direction and walked into the ditch, rolling Jake gently to the ground before demorphing.

“Jake?” _Be okay, please be okay..._ I reached out to inspect the wound.

“I'm... fine, Cassie. I'm fine.” He pushed my hand away. “Sorry, I was a bit out of it there.”

I ignored his attempts to push me away and took his chin in one hand, moving his head to get a look at the wound. “It's only a graze,” I reported, hearing the near-hysterical relief in my own voice. “I think it's a bullet, but it didn't go through your skull. You're still probably concussed, though. Do you know what day it is?”

“It was probably a ricochet. I'm _fine_ , Cassie.”

“You were pretty out of it there, dude,” Marco said.

“We're taking you to a doctor,” I said firmly.

Jake sat up and wiped some sludge off his face. "Sorry I scared you. But I'm fine. And where are you going to take me? Back to that hospital? What if some doctor does a blood test and he sees something that shows him I'm an Animorph?"

"Like what?" Marco asked, sounding skeptical.

"How do I know? Maybe some leftover roach DNA. As soon as we know Rachel and Ax are ok, we should go home before the yeerks can find us.”

<I'm going back up,> Tobias said. <Make sure no one is after us, and see if Rachel and Ax are okay.> He flapped his wings and flew away through the trees.

"I don't think there's all that much the yeerks can do right now," Marco said. "We're deep in the national forest. It would take a while for them to organise a search. They'd need helicopters and lots of human-Controllers. And they don't even know what they're looking for." He laughed. "After all, they still think we're andalites."

"Yeah, but it means we're going to have to be very careful with Ax," Jake said. "We'll need to hide him. I think we may have parboiled quite a few yeerks in that whirlpool. They're going to be very upset."

Well, he seemed to be back mentally. That was a good sign. And he was right, we couldn't take him back to the hospital we'd just run from. Or any hospital. What if the doctor could recognise his wound as a bullet wound? Could they tell? We couldn't risk it. And if he morphed to heal the wound, well, we'd have nothing to show them.

Footsteps behind us. Rachel dropped into the ditch, one arm carefully raised to accommodate Tobias perched upon it. Neither of them paid any attention to the shallow, bleeding scratches left by his claws.

Jake smiled. “Hey, cousin. I see you made it okay.”

“You left some of the hospital standing, I hope,” I said. I scanned the sky. It was starting to get dark. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Would we be able to get home easier, or would the yeerks risk breaking out alien tech? “There were a lot of civilians in there.”

Ax climbed silently into the ditch and headed for Jake, who was still watching Rachel. <Is he alright?> he asked me, privately I think. I shrugged.

Rachel laughed. “Don't worry, Cassie, we stayed outside the buildings. Of course, a lot of those civilians don't have cars any more, but that's what insurance is for, right?”

“Insurance against elephant attack?” Marco asked. “I'm sure that'll go down well in – ” He froze. We all froze. None of us dared to move, because Ax, his face a mask of andalite fury, had whipped his tail-blade forward and pressed it against Jake's throat.

<Yeerk,> he hissed.


	7. Chapter 7

"Ax! What are you doing?" I demanded. We did not need our resident andalite unbalanced.

"Are you NUTS?" Marco cried.

"What's your problem, Ax?" Jake asked, a lot more reasonably than I would have in his situation. He was keeping carefully still but, like me, kept glancing at the Dracon beam in Ax's hand. I shared a look with Rachel, then Marco. None of us had a chance at getting it, not without endangering Jake. Ax's main eyes were on Jake, but his stalk eyes were moving between us. We had to try to talk him down.

<Prince Jake has been taken. He is a Controller.>

"What?" Rachel snapped. "Back off, Ax. You're crazy."

<His head was in the yeerk pool long enough for a yeerk to enter his head,> Ax said. <And just now … you all saw his expression when he was surprised to see me. I am not human. I do not know every human expression. So tell me. What was that look?>

I hadn't seen the expression. But Tobias said, <Yeah, that was weird.>

"This is crazy." Jake gave a laugh. "Marco... Cassie... would you please tell this nut that I am okay?"

But I saw doubt in Marco's shrewd eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure you're fine, Jake. But Cassie? Remember how Jake seemed zoned out? Like he wouldn't answer for a few minutes, even though he was awake?"

I nodded. "Yeah. He seemed normal and all, but he wouldn't answer me." I shrugged. "Sorry, Jake, but you did act funny." Ax had a point. And we couldn't take chances. But we also couldn't afford to tear our group apart with every stray suspicion.

I pushed away the panic welling inside me.

<For a first infestation, sometimes it takes a while for the yeerk to take full control of the host's brain,> Ax said. <During that time, the host will be passive. He may even seem to be in a coma.>

"You guys can't possibly believe this," Jake said. "I mean, okay, we have to be careful. But it's me. It's me, Jake, all right?"

"Being Jake and all, you'll understand if we take a minute to think this through," Rachel said. “Ax? How are we supposed to know one way or the other?"

Tobias answered for him. <The yeerk needs to return to the yeerk pool and absorb Kandrona rays every three days. If we hold him for three days, we'll know.>

"We can't hold him for three days," I pointed out. "His family would go ballistic. They'll call the cops. Chapman will realise he's not in school. The bad guys will put two and two together."

"Look. Hello. Hello-o-o? It's me, Jake. Remember? I am not a Controller."

“Yeah, we know,” Marco said dismissively. “Give us a second. If there's a yeerk in his head, then he knows all our secrets. If he gets in touch with any other yeerk, we are all dead. We can't take the chance. Maybe Ax is right. Maybe not. But we can't guess wrong."

<I agree,> Tobias said. <If he's still Jake, he'll understand. If he's a Controller, well, I guess we'll find out, won't we?>

"Rachel?" Marco asked.

Rachel looked at Jake. "Sorry, Jake. But we have to play it safe. You know that."

"Look," Jake argued. "It's like Cassie said. My folks will go nuts. They'll call the police. They'll go on TV asking if anyone has seen me. They'll be putting up posters all over town. I mean, no offense, Tobias, but I have an actual family, not some messed-up aunts and uncles who didn't want to be taking care of me in the first place. People will notice if I disappear." He turned to me. "Cassie, come on. Explain it to them."

Whatever we did here was going to become standard protocol if the problem arose again. It had to be done right. "There is a way," I said hesitantly.

"To be sure whether he's a Controller?" Rachel asked.

"No. A way to keep his family and the school from knowing he's gone. Ax could do it. Ax could morph into Jake.”

Ax reached pressed one of his delicate, many-fingered hands against Jake's forehead. <I will acquire your DNA now, Prince Jake,> he said.

"Get your hand off me, andalite filth!" Jake screamed, jumping back. Ax's tail moved with him, staying very close to his throat.

"Well," Rachel said. "At least now we're sure."

I swallowed hard. This was bad. This was really bad

"No, you're wrong," Jake pleaded. "He's just making me mad. Hey, it's been a stressful morning, all right? Give me a break."

<'Andalite filth'?> Tobias repeated his words. <We're supposed to believe Jake would say that? Jake? Because he was stressed out? Nah. Not in this universe.>.

"Jake," I said, "I know you're still in there. I know you're probably afraid. But we will get that thing out of your head, Jake. We will." I searched his eyes. Was there a sign? A trigger, a twitch? Some level of desperation? Well, there was clear fear of us, but I didn't think I'd be able to see Jake in there. Didn't matter. He was there. And we'd save him.

“Yeerk or not, I think he's right,” Marco said hesitantly.

“What?!” Rachel snapped.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Ax can't do it. Ax can't imitate him.”

“Sure he can,” Rachel said. “We'll help him.”

Marco shook his head. “Ax, you're great, but... guys, you haven't seen him around food. Trust me, we do not want to put him undercover in the same house as a high-ranking Controller.”

I glanced at Jake. He couldn't respond, but I knew he'd be worried about Tom. We'd botched the operation, but we'd still trashed Tom's yeerk's plan. Would Tom be ok?

“What do you suggest, then?” Rachel asked. “We let him go missing?”

“No.” Marco lifted his chin. “I've known Jake since we were kids. And we can be pretty sure, never certain but pretty sure, that my Dad isn't a Controller, and if he is, 'my son is posing as his possessed friend' isn't really the first thing that's gonna leap into his head if I start staying out late. I'll do it.” He placed a hand on Jake's arm, and Jake's eyes fluttered briefly shut.

“Okay," Marco said when he was done. "We need a place to keep him."

"We can't use anyone's home," I said thoughtfully. "We can't use my barn. My dad is in and out of there constantly."

<I know a place,> Tobias said. <It's not far from here. An old shack back in the woods.>

"We can tie him up," Rachel said. "But we'll still have to have at least one of us there all the time, to make sure he doesn't get away. With Marco on Jake-posing duty, the rest of us can take shifts. The weekend shouldn't be a problem. Monday might be tricky.”

"Okay, let's go," Marco said. "Come on, Jake. We're out of here."

I walked over and took Jake's hand. I didn't know how much he could feel or do with the yeerk in his brain, but I hoped my support would help. Besides, physically holding onto him further reduced the slight chance he might do something stupid, like run. The yeerk didn't reject the contact; he gripped my hand just like Jake would. Or did he? Would Jake have brushed me away, charged forward alone? Surely not; the yeerk was working with Jake's memories, still looking for ways to let us go.

I wished that I knew Jake better. That I knew everyone better. These were my comrades-in-arms, and I'd trusted them with my life countless times. I was prepared to die for them, and had tried to do just that in the past. But that was just war stuff. I knew when to get out of the way so that Marco or Rachel could shield us with their bulk, and when to listen to Tobias' warnings of genuine danger as opposed to his exaggerated concerns for our safety. But I had no idea whether Jake would hold my hand as we strode into the forest.

The yeerk, apparently, would. It had to know how I felt about Jake. Jake wasn't blind. It knew how Jake felt about me. I knew the yeerk didn't care about me and didn't want my comfort. It didn't want to cooperate. We were enemies. It was trying to manipulate me. As soon as we were alone it was probably going to break out some sob story using Jake's face to soften my heart. Why me? Why not Jake's best friend, or Jake's cousin? Or the guy who called Jake his prince?

Probably because I was the one who reached for him. It would probably try to manipulate any of us that it could. Or maybe it thought I was soft-hearted, that I was weak. Maybe Jake thought that.

He'd be right; I am soft-hearted.

"From all we know, Jake, you can still hear me and understand me," I said. "I know you can't answer. Or if you do answer it won't be you, anyway - "

"But it is me," said the yeerk. "Who else would it be?"

"The yeerk," I answered as patiently as I could.

"You think I'm a Controller just because I yelled at Ax? Like I've never lost my temper before? Come on. It was a bad day. For all of us, but especially for me."

<Not so bad a day,> Ax piped up from behind. <How many yeerks were in that pool? How many survived those temperatures? Only you, by getting inside Prince Jake. How many of your pool-fellows died today?>

"Ax," Jake said, "I'm never happy when any creature has to be destroyed. But I don't feel any pity for those yeerks. They are out to enslave us. We did what we had to do."

He was right. That's how Jake felt... or how I assumed he’d felt, twisting electrical wires between his fingers to kill a pool full of our enemies. That's how we all felt. We were protecting our planet, and that didn't make war a good thing, but none of us was going to hesitate to do it. Not even soft-hearted little me. Not even if the enemy was using Jake as a human shield.

I realised I'd tightened my grip on his hand. I loosened it a little.

Stones and branches cut our feet as we walked through the forest. We ignored them. Being an Animorph gets you used to pain pretty quickly. It's not just the constant exposure to it, it's the automatic healing. Half of the concern about pain isn't the pain itself, it's the damage. _Will this get infected? Will this heal? Will I be able to use my arm ever again?_ When there was no risk of long-term damage, mild pain was just an annoyance. We kept moving. Eventually, we reached the shack; an old, half-collapsed thing missing part of a wall and some of the roof. Not exactly secure.

<Ax and I can take first shift,> Tobias said. <You guys should go get some sleep.>

Rachel shook her head. “You need your sleep, too. I'll check in at home and then sneak back out, take the night shift.”

“Come by my barn on your way back,” I told her, already focusing on my osprey morph. Beside me, Marco and Rachel also began to change. Ax, still looking angry, forced Jake into the cabin. We took to the sky.

<For the record, I don't like this,> Marco said.

<Do you have a better plan?> Rachel asked.

<No. No I don't. But maybe you should be Jake. Your mom is always busy and stuff.>

<Which is why I have to be home for Jordan and Sara all the time, unlike Mister Only Child. Besides, Jake and I might be cousins but we were never really close.>

<Don't worry,> I told Marco. <I know it's hard not to be there yourself, but we will protect Jake.>

<That's what I'm worried about,> Marco said.

<What is that supposed to mean?> Rachel demanded. <You think we can't do it?>

<You two do realise that the first thing that yeerk is gonna do is try morphing, right?>

<Of course. We're not idiots.>

<You think you can stop him from escaping in morph without killing him?>

<Yes.>

<And you realise that he's not going to show you the same consideration? Jake will try to kill you, if he has to.>

<Not Jake,> I said forcefully. <Just the thing in his head.>

<Makes no difference. It has Jake's face and Jake's life is on the line. Do you think the fact that he's not pulling the strings is gonna make it easier or harder to fight him? After what we've seen of Tom? After what we've seen of... of other human-Controllers?>

<Ah,> I said. <This is directed at me.>

<It's a problem with all of us,> Marco replied. <With this war.>

<Except you... you seem to think you being there is gonna help. That we... that I... will screw up, but you won't.>

<I think you'll hesitate, Cassie. I think I might botch an attack, but I think you won't attack at all. I think that if you have to choose between Jake and our species, you'll let your emotions get the better of you. I think you'll choose Jake. And we can't afford that.>

<You know what, Marco?> I said as I peeled off toward my own house, <I trust you with my life. But I honestly don't think that you know me very well.>


	8. Chapter 8

There wasn’t much furniture in the shack. There was, however, a table and a few chairs, so Rachel and Jake spent their night staring awkwardly at each other across the table. Shackles weren’t exactly standard veterinary fare, but zip ties were; the two were connected by a five foot length of chain ziptied to one of their wrists. Ax patrolled outside with the shredder, in case Jake overpowered Rachel. He’d need to sleep eventually, but Tobias would be there to supervise then and wake him, if need be. At about ten in the morning, after I’d finished my chores, I’d switch with Rachel.

That was the plan. Tobias and I should be resting up, getting ready to take our shifts. Instead, we were in the forest; him watching the shack from above, me patrolling the woods between the cabin and the farm as a lone wolf.

<He’s making his move,> Tobias reported. <Rachel’s gone to ‘sleep’ and… yep… he’s heading over. We’re certain he won’t hurt her, right?>

<He will do everything he can to preserve as many morph-capable hosts as possible for the empire,> Ax said. <Provided he does not think that she poses a danger.>

<He’s… he’s going for the scissors in her pocket. Cutting the tie. Ax, Cassie? You guys ready? Oh, no… he’s going tiger. Ax, you might want to pretend he’s snuck past you.>

Of course he would go tiger first. Big, powerful, vicious. And Rachel was in there, unmorphed, helpless.

<He’s leaving.> I could hear the relief in Tobias’ voice. <We got a tiger in the forest, guys.>

I growled. Tiger. I didn’t have any morph that would stand up for two minutes against a tiger.

<Okay, he’s… he’s heading further into the forest,> Tobias said. <Wow, tigers aren’t all that great at navigating without eyes in the sky, are they?>

<Tigers can have big territories, but they’re not really travellers,> I pointed out. <I’d feel better if we were deeper in the forest, but…>

<Rachel wishes to know if it is ‘stomping time’,> Ax reported.

<We shouldn’t engage unless we have to,> I said.

<Cassie’s right,> Tobias added. <In this morph it’s just a matter of time before he gives up and goes back to the shack.>

If the yeerk had thought he was prepared for the forest, he was wrong. He eventually gave up and morphed peregrine falcon, only to be knocked out of the sky by a far-too-enthusiastic Tobias who threatened to put his eyes out. His wolf morph was dealt with when Rachel and I went wolf and called the local pack out to defend their territory. His lizard morph mostly kept us occupied trying to prevent anything else from eating him. I was a little worried he'd head for the river and try eel – an osprey could fish him out, but probably not very well in the dark – but either it didn't occur to him or he didn't know where the river was. I avoided talking to him. Eventually, I had to go home, do my chores and pretend I'd had a good night's sleep.

It was only going to get harder. On the first day, he was being cautious. He was backing down, trying not to do anything to get himself killed. But how long before hunger and desperation drove him to do stupid risks? How long before he started putting Jake in real danger, and we had to start following through with threats? Eventually, he was going to get desperate enough to have no choice but fight to the death. Eventually, we were going to have to choose between Jake and humanity.

It was an obvious decision. A logical decision. A decision that we all knew Jake would approve of whole-heartedly.

Would we be able to make it?


	9. Chapter 9

“So,” Jake asked, “had a good night's sleep?”

I didn't look up from our card castle to answer. I was too busy making sure that the chain connecting our wrists didn't knock it over as I carefully placed a peak. “Yeah, running around the forest after aliens is my idea of a great Friday night. How about you? Do anything exciting?”

“Played tag with pretend soldiers, mostly.” He waited for me to sit back down before leaning over the tower himself to place a card.

“What's your name?” I asked.

“What?”

“I'm not calling you Jake. And I can't keep calling you 'the yeerk'. Do you have a name?”

“Ah, this is the part where you play amateur interrogator and convince me to give away military secrets. And you didn't even bring thumbscrews. I'm offended.”

“If I was trying to interrogate you, I'd be more subtle about it.” I placed another card. “But if you're so ridiculously high-ranking that even your _name_ is a secret...”

“I will be, when I report to Visser Three,” he said. “When I bring the Empire six morph-capable hosts and fell the 'andalite bandits' in one fell swoop, I'll be sub-Visser at least. Possibly even Visser.”

 _Sub-Vissers below Vissers. Got it._ “Is there anything above Vissers in your society?”

The yeerk frowned. “Why do you care?”

“Just making conversation. I don't foresee too many chances to have an open discussion with a yeerk.”

“Oh, you'll have plenty once you've got one inside you.” He leaned forward. “You want 'open discussion', Cassie? You want to know what Jake thinks of you? He thinks about you a lot, you know.”

I froze, holding a card an inch or so above our tower. “Oh, is this the part where you try to embarrass Jake and me for no reason?”

“No, this is the part where I point out that you can't win. Because I can see Jake's memories, Cassie, and he may not be too bright but he is right about one thing. He thinks you're weak. He thinks you can't handle the war. He thinks you can't do what needs to be done.”

“Does he now?” I had to place the card, but my hand was trembling. I didn't want to knock over the tower.

“He sits awake at night, sometimes. Planning. Planning battles, strategies. Planning around weaknesses. Rachel's too bloodthirsty, Marco's too self-centred, Tobias is trapped, Ax is arrogant and narrow-minded. But you, Cassie... you're the real weak link. Have you noticed that yet?”

Very carefully, I put the card on the tower and drew my hand away. It stayed upright. “Your turn.”

“Everyone else is out here prepared for war. What are you doing? Playing Planeteer? Everyone knows you can't fight, not really. You can't kill. I mean, sure, taxxons in the heat of battle, but if it comes to anything more than that...”

“You're wrong.”

“What, you think you can?”

“Not about me. I can't be sure of that unless that situation ever comes up. Ideally, I want to avoid it.” I met his... Jake's... eyes. “You're wrong about Rachel. She's been my best friend since we were kids, and she's caring and brave. If she seems bloodthirsty, it's because she's trying to protect her friends, her family, her planet, from you. And Jake knows that. I think you're coloring things with your own flawed perceptions a bit. Marco isn't self-centred; he's just a realist. I've watched him use his own body as a shield to give us time to escape; not on orders, just jumping forward on instinct, knowing he wouldn't get out, telling us to get out of there. Tobias' constant eyes in the sky are an advantage that more than make up for his lack of morphing ability, and I don't know Ax very well, but judging by how your people react to the 'andalite bandits' I'd say they have pretty good cause to be arrogant. Your assessments are wrong, and I have no reason to listen to them. Now, are you going to place a card or not?”

“What, not going to defend yourself?”

“Why? I have nothing to justify to you. Whether you think I'm weak or strong doesn't matter. Careful of the left side... your right side... the tower's tipping a little.”

The yeerk considered the tower, and instead placed two cards next to it, creating a tiny neighbouring building. “Temrash one-one-four,” he said.

“Huh?”

“My name. Temrash one-one-four.” He sat back and inspected the newly balanced cards. “You'll be hearing a lot of yeerk names, when you're one of our slaves. Mine may as well be the first.”


	10. Chapter 10

Temrash's was the second yeerk name I knew, but I didn't tell him that. Instead I let an awkward silence fall while we continued to build our tower. Eventually, it collapsed, and we played a few rounds of Go Fish instead. I ignored the occasional jibes and threats that he shot at me; he similarly ignored my questions about the yeerk empire, except to act amused at how little information Ax had shared with us.

Rachel brought us a picnic basket at the end of my shift, and we all sat down and had sandwiches together. I'd half-expected that we'd have to cajole Temrash into eating, but he took the sandwiches without argument. He probably wanted to stay strong for future escape attempts. Ax paced suspiciously nearby, always keeping one eye (and the Dracon beam) on Jake. (What did Ax even eat, anyway? And how? He didn't have a mouth that I could see.)

“You going to fire that thing, andalite, or just wave it around?” Temrash called. Ax glared at him, but didn't move.

“Oh, the juvenile jibes,” Rachel muttered, rolling her eyes. “This never gets old.”

“Restraint, huh?” Temrash shrugged. “Odd. I mean, I'd be the first to get behind the vaunted andalite reputation for _kindness_ , but – ”

He ceased speaking, because in less than a second Ax had closed the distance between them and knocked Jake against the ground, pressing his tail-blade against his throat. <One more word, yeerk. One. More. Word.> Temrash didn't say anything, but a tiny smirk remained plastered on Jake's face.

<Ax-man,> Tobias interjected, <maybe you should get some sleep? I'll come get you if anything happens.>

<Yes. That sounds like an excellent idea.> Ax deliberately took two steps back, glared at Jake for a moment longer, and then turned to dash into the trees. I shot a questioning glance at Tobias, but his face was, as always, blank.

Rachel and I switched places after lunch. I went home and tried to get some homework done, before taking a brief power nap that turned into a five-hour sleep. Good. I needed sleep. The first half of the night, I was going to be on Jake duty.

I smiled and chatted through dinner. Pretended I wasn't tired and wasn't worried. Gave some antibiotics to the wolf. If only there was some drug I could give Jake that would get rid of his infection. But on the whole, yeerks were easier to get rid of than most brain parasites; two more days, and Jake would recover on his own.

Two more days of keeping him in the middle of nowhere, trying not to get killed or get him killed, watching an evil parasite sneer with his face.

When I went to relieve Rachel, she didn't even bother waiting for me to get inside the shack before charging out. “If I have to look at his face for one more second I swear I am going to punch him,” she growled, throwing her cut ziptie onto the ground. “I will punch him until he's unconscious and then we can just guard his body for three days.”

“Two more to go,” I said, crouching to pick up the piece of plastic she'd carelessly discarded. “What did he do?”

“It doesn't matter. Ugh. I can't wait for this to be over. I am going to smack Jake so hard...”

“It isn't Jake. None of this is Jake's fault.”

“Yeah, you say that _now_...” she charged off into the trees without explanation. I glanced up at Tobias. He cocked his head in what I was pretty sure was his version of a shrug.

Temrash was sitting quietly at the table when I came in. Somebody had given him paper and a pencil, and he was drawing something. He handed me the unsecured end of the chain without comment when I walked over, and I ziptied it to my wrist. I glanced over at his drawing, and frowned. “Trees?”

“It's the only thing these hands can draw that doesn't look downright embarrassing. Your jumped-up little boyfriend is no artist.”

“Jake's not my – ” I wasn't having that argument with a space slug. “Why do the yeerks want a hospital, anyway?”

“'A' hospital?” He barked a laugh, made disconcerting by Jake's familiar voice. “Oh, Cassie. None of you have a clue what's going on, do you?”

“Obviously not.” There was no point in denying it.

“And here I thought you were a thinker. Maybe Jake's right, maybe you are just a happy feel-good nature girl.”

I frowned. “Is this your plan? Annoy everyone? You made Rachel pretty mad.”

“I can't imagine how. All I did was state the truth.” He held up a pack of cards and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Not right now,” I said, sitting down. _He's trying to antagonise you because he has no way out. He's desperate. It's just an infection in Jake's brain. You can deal with infection. His remarks are no more personal, no more important, than an injured animal trying to bite you when you touch its wound._

Temrash shrugged and went back to his drawing. I didn't try to fill the silence. I told myself I shouldn't pay attention to anything Jake's mouth said until he had his own mind back.

It didn't help.

Eventually, he drifted off to sleep, head resting in the crook of his elbow on the table, hair falling over his face. He needed a haircut. (Could we still cut our hair? Would we keep haircuts if we morphed?) He was smiling faintly. Did yeerks sleep? Was a sleeping Controller any different to a sleeping uninfected person? Was Jake's body under the same control as it had been when he'd slept two nights ago, or was the yeerk in control even now? As I watched, his eyes began to twitch, and his brow furrowed. He moaned. Nightmares. I hoped the yeerk could see them, was disturbed by them; they deserved to share in the pain they'd caused. I walked over to him and pushed the hair out of his eyes. “It's okay, Jake,” I murmured. “It'll be okay.”

A sharp pain accompanied a jolt in the back of my head, and I fell forward onto the suddenly very awake and alert Jake. Before I could recover, he clambered out from under me and hit me again. A rock, I saw; he was hitting me with a large rock.

_Tseer!_

Tobias shot down from the fallen-in roof of the shack and raked his talons across Jake's face. Jake swung for him with the rock, narrowly missing.

“Tobias, get Ax!” I called as he glided round for another strike. Tobias couldn't heal by morphing, and his life had no value to Temrash. He was the last person who should be in combat. He flapped his way out of the building, but his strike had bought me time to grab for the rock. Jake was stronger than me. We both had head wounds. But he had blood running into his eyes, and I didn't. He couldn't see; my bite to his wrist took him by surprise, and he let go of the rock. I gripped it tightly in my own hand and held it away from him. Suddenly, Jake froze.

“C... Cassie... help me... you have to help me...” he stuttered.

“Jake!” I pushed him back into his chair. “Jake, you have to fight. It's going to be okay. Keep fighting.”

“Cassie... I...” he reached one hand toward me, ran it down the side of my face... then suddenly, pain. I couldn't see anything. Something hard was pressed against my face and shoulder... _the table_ , I realised dimly as he slammed me into it again, _he's hitting my head on the table_. “You're so gullible!” he sneered. “You keep hesitating, you keep letting me grab you...” he slammed me down a third time. I couldn't see, couldn't find a surface to gain purchase on, couldn't tell what was up and down; there was only pain and Jake's voice. “So desperate to see any sign of your precious Jake, as if he could fight me...” the table, again... “I'll break his spirit though, I'll break him and I'll enjoy watching your yeerk break you...” the attack stopped. The voice stopped. There was scrambling, brief silence... and then a heavy feeling in my head... and then I was alone.


	11. Chapter 11

Alone. What had happened? _The facts, Cassie, gather the facts._

Blood. A lot more than I'd have expected. Dried, most of it. I'd passed out. Of course.

Not thinking right. Head wound. Treat the injury, call ambulance... I glanced blearily around the ruined shack. _Bandages, bandages..._

Wait, no. Bandages in the barn. Get to the barn. Go quick. Osprey morph.

Osprey morph would heal the wound. Duh.

I closed my eyes and did my best to focus on the bird. My teeth melded into a beak and erupted from under my lips. My skull changed shape. And my head began to clear with it.

He'd tricked me! With no effort! He'd even warned me in advance! _You're weak, Cassie, you'll hesitate_. And I did. I had been weak. Worse, I'd been stupid. Stupid and careless. I took to the sky on new wings.

<Cassie!>

<Tobias?>

<You're okay! You are okay, right?>

<I think so. How long since...?>

<I went straight to Ax and back. Maybe 5 minutes? Where's Jake?>

<I don't know, he knocked me out. You take East, I take West?>

Tobias didn't answer; he merely changed course as I'd suggested. Ax, I knew, would take a little longer to get to us.

<Got him,> Tobias reported. <Heading towards your farm. Wolf morph.>

Wolf. Jake's wolf was bigger and stronger than my wolf. It was swifter than Ax over the distance they needed to cover. And Tobias, of course, posed no real danger. Without Rachel, without preparation, it probably wouldn't be possible to find the local pack in time. <This is why he was antagonising us,> I realised. <He needed Rachel and Ax out of the way. And he was banking on my weakness.>

<So apparently I'm not enough of a threat to bother antagonising,> Tobias grumbled.

<Really? That's what you take from this?>

<Tobias, Cassie, I am almost at the shack,> Ax reported.

<Keep going, Ax-man,> Tobias said. <He's making a break for it. Wolf. We'll try to slow him down long enough for you to get here.>

<How are we going to do that?> I asked Tobias.

<Absolutely no idea.> That wasn't entirely true. There was one thing I could try, although it was hard to know if it would work until I tried. I caught up with Tobias, tailing Jake as he loped resolutely towards my farm. He didn't seem to have noticed us. I thought about Visser Three, and that aura of malevolence that seemed to ooze from him. I thought about the yeerks, here not just to destroy our culture but our planet. To wipe out everything, simply because they didn't have an immediate use for it. There would be no more birds, flying as we were. The grass under Jake's paws wouldn't exist. And we, those of us who survived, would be slaves. I remembered him hitting me with the rock.

I let the hatred and anger well up in me. I dragged it forward. My planet. My people. My entire world. No. They'd never have it. We'd kill every last one of them before letting them have it.

When there was nothing left to drag forward, I prepared to use thought-speak. I shoved every shred of my hate and rage and disgust right at Jake.

He stumbled, then froze, whining deep in his throat, ears plastered to his skull as he looked desperately for the source of the feeling. _There you go, you bastard, have a handful of terrified wolf instincts to fight_. I landed on a branch behind him to demorph as he slowly backed up.

<Cassie, what happened?> Tobias asked, but I was too human to respond.

Temrash seemed to get a grip. He sniffed at the air, apparently ready to try to keep moving. But by then, it was too late; mostly human, I dropped from the tree onto the terrified, confused wolf. I landed on his pelvis, and he gave a yelp of pain. He turned and sunk his teeth into my arm; I was already trying to focus on the wolf within me through the pain of my own injuries. We were both injured. But I was going wolf, and he had nowhere to go but human.

<I am going to enjoy watching you scream for mercy at the yeerk pool,> Temrash raged, jaws still locked around my arm as it sprouted thick wolf hair.

<You keep telling yourself that,> I replied. <You hear those hooves coming this way? You probably don't wanna be injured by the time they get here. You've made Ax a little mad.>

He started to demorph. By the time Ax arrived, he was mostly human, and I was more than a match for him even with my wounded leg. <Let's get him back to the shack,> I said.

<He hurt you,> Ax said, privately I think.

<It's not Jake.>

<I know.> Ax's Dracon beam didn't waver as we marched Jake back to the shack.

<He's getting more desperate,> Tobias said. <This was a really dangerous plan.>

<I know,> I replied.

<We still have two days of this. The yeerk isn't just going to give up and die. He's going to do what we do when we're cornered; throw everything into the tiny, last-ditch chance of escape.>

<I know.>

We ziptied Jake's hands and ankles together and chained him to the chair. Then Ax sat across the room, still cradling the Dracon beam. <I am rested, and can stand guard until Rachel's shift. He presents no danger in this state; I will simply stun him if he does anything. You should go home and get some rest.>

<Ax? Don't... don't forget that Jake is in there, okay?>

For the first time since he'd caught up with us, Ax took his main eyes off Jake and focused them on me. <I will not forget my duty to my Prince, Cassie, or to the war effort.>

Yikes. <Okay then. I'll... I'll see you later, then.> I loped out of the shack. I didn't go straight home, though. Instead, I went for a run.

He'd tricked me! He'd tricked all of us! He'd played Rachel and Ax until they became aggressive, until Tobias and I got them away from him... and it worked. He'd faked Jake and I'd believed it, even though I knew perfectly well that yeerks could play their hosts so convincingly that their invasion wasn't even suspected by the public. I'd hesitated. I'd let that brief flash of false Jake hold me back long enough for him to overpower me. I hadn't even questioned the lack of Ax, I'd been too wrapped up in being happy that he wasn't about to kill Jake any second. I'd been weak, soft-hearted... that didn't bother me. What bothered me was that I had been stupid.

I was smarter than this. I knew I was. It must be the stress. The lack of sleep. Or maybe they were excuses. Maybe I wasn't smart at all; maybe my rational thinking skills were always terrible, and they'd just never been tested before. Maybe my own ego had blinded me to my faults.

Not an immediate problem. Deal with Jake first.

Tobias was right; he was going to get more desperate. He was already using Jake's knowledge of our little team to pull it apart. What was he going to do next? Play us off each other? Maybe. We had to ignore everything he said. Everything he told us was chosen to hurt and manipulate us. But physically... how long before he became desperate enough for a last-ditch effort? How long before he forced one of us to kill Jake? Could any of us do that? I'd just proven that I couldn't. I was an inadequate guard in that situation. Could any of the others?

Would I, even with the whole planet at stake, let them?


	12. Chapter 12

I stole one of my father's sleeping pills when I got home. After rushing through my chores, I told my parents that I was feeling sick and went to bed. I had no choice. I needed to be able to think.

Six hours of dreamless sleep later, I could.

Okay. Okay. Too many problems. Time for notes. I pulled out a notepad, then stared blankly at it for several seconds.

I wrote Temrash's name.

Not useful. Not important. I had real issues to think about. Like how we were going to keep Jake alive. Like how we were going to keep the Animorphs together afterwards.

What had he said to Rachel? Why had Ax reacted so violently to his relatively mild taunts?

I wrote, 'Jake hit me'. Not entirely true. Not Jake. Never Jake. I was beginning to get an inkling of what Jake must feel when he looked at Tom across the table, or had heard Tom give the order to kill him. But it had been Jake's sneer. Jake's hand. And no matter what I knew, that was going to have subconscious effects. Could I accept him as leader any more? Could I follow his orders without hesitation? Trust him with my life?

“He thinks you're weak.” Temrash's words. What had he said to the others? Letting the yeerk die wouldn't take back those words.

On the plus side, my thought-speak emotional blast seemed to have the desired effect. I made a note of it. I needed more practise, but it could shape up to be a good weapon. We needed every weapon we could get.

My own weakness... I was tired, I was... no. No, no excuses. I couldn't do what needed to be done. I'd choked. And if I couldn't do it, it was better to know. So that I could compensate. I wrote “Too hesitant to attack” with a slow, trembling hand and added in brackets “Jake/Temrash”. Too hesitant. I could run all the calculations in the world, sit and derive what the best possible solution was to the best of my ability, but when it came to actually taking that action... I couldn't do it. Knowing perfectly well he could heal, I couldn't attack. I dropped my guard without a thought; I could've sold out the whole world over a stupid emotional impulse. All the logic in the world didn't save me from simple human failing.

It was better to know.

As for Temrash... he had less than two days left. It was Sunday, and he might lie low, hope we'd drop our guards for an escape on Monday. Monday was tricky. Monday we needed to be in school.

It occurred to me that with Jake's memories, he could probably predict our plans quite well. We hadn't been close for very long, but we'd been through enough tough adventures together for Jake to know how we fought, how we strategised. Perhaps it was best that Marco was busy pretending to be Jake. Jake knew Marco better than any of us.

“Cassie? How are you feeling?” My mother. She knocked tentatively on the door.

“Much better.” I hid the notebook under my pillow. “Come in.”

She did, bearing a cup of hot chocolate, which she put on my beside table, and a thermometer, which she handed to me. “If you're running a fever, I'll take you to hospital,” she explained as she peered into my eyes.

This happened every time I got sick. “I'm not one of your animal patients, Mum.”

“No, but if you might've caught something off them then we need to be extra careful.”

“I've had shots for everything under the sun!”

“Shots for some things don't exist.”

I shrugged and stuck the thermometer in my mouth. I wasn't worried. Faking sickness wasn't going to produce a fever. My mother watched me with concern, her brow furrowed in that way it does when she's deciding what drugs to give an animal.

Drugs for me, who wasn't sick. There were no drugs on Earth who could help Jake, who was.

Except...

Oh. Duh.


	13. Chapter 13

I ignored Rachel's concerned glances when I went to relieve her. Was there pity in her looks? Probably. Temrash didn't even try to start a conversation, not even when I periodically cut the ties on Jake's ankles and wrists to ensure proper circulation. Ax was always present, standing in one corner with a hand on the Dracon beam, at least one eye on Jake at all times.

“Your warrior training covered long spates of guard duty like this, I suppose?” I asked him.

< _Aristh_ training, > he corrected me. <I am not a warrior. And yes.>

That was the extent of our conversation.

At the end of my shift, I briefly explained my plan to Tobias.

<Is it safe?> he asked.

<Part 1 is pretty safe. Part 2 is... safer than what we have now. Look, he's going to make a break for it tomorrow, no matter what. Last chance for survival, most of us in school...>

<And we need to keep ourselves, and Jake, alive. Fine. I'll tell the others.>

Preparation for part 1 was easy.

Most of what we needed was in the house and barn. I selected a sedative, carefully cut it in half, and tossed half into the mortar. My dad's sleeping pills wouldn't work; they were designed to be taken whole with water. The one I needed was one that was designed to be ground up and hidden in food for our patients.

I ground it up, and mixed it with the egg filling for a sandwich.

Preparation for part 2 was harder. One dose of sedatives wouldn't keep Jake asleep all day and all night, and there was no way Temrash would fall for the same trick twice. We needed something else for when he woke up. The Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic didn't have what we needed.

The Gardens did. After some preliminary research, I broke into a veterinary supply room – well, buzzed in as a fly – and quickly found what I needed. It was small enough to roll under doors, although not small enough to carry as a fly. A lot of morphing later, I was an osprey with a tiny vial clutched in my talons.

I went to sleep. I shared an egg salad sandwich breakfast with Jake. I went to class.

I bumped into Jake at recess.

“Hey, Cassie! I'm gonna need you to put your life on hold and come listen to me talk all manly about serious things in a barn.” His mock scowl broke into a grin. I squinted.

“Marco? What are you doing?”

“Uh, maintaining cover?”

“Are you skipping out on your own classes to attend Jake's?”

“Well, yeah. Jake, unlike me, is the poster boy for perfect attendance. If one of us is gonna be missing classes...” he shrugged. “You know, I always told Jake that his good student routine would cause trouble down the road somehow. If only he'd listened.” His face became serious. “What's the situation?”

I told him.

“So he'll stay knocked out until we get out of school?”

“He should, yeah. If I guessed his weight right.”

Marco nodded, then looked up at the sky. I followed his gaze. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. Just waiting for Tobias to come streaking across the sky screaming 'he's escaped!' That sort of thing always happens when somebody starts talking optimistically.”

As it turns out, Marco was wrong.

Nobody came streaking across the sky until lunchtime. And it was Ax, not Tobias.


	14. Chapter 14

<What, exactly, happened?> Rachel asked as we flew for the forest.

<He has Tobias. The yeerk is trying to make him guide it out of the forest. With luck, it still believes I am following, waiting for an opportunity to strike. It should not have expected me to come to you for help.>

<Why not?>

<Because it knows andalites. There they are.>

Jake had Tobias by the throat in one hand. <Are you alright?> I asked Tobias, excluding Jake from the conversation, while Ax demorphed out of their sight.

<For now. Please tell me you have a plan.>

<Is cutting him into ribbons a plan?> Rachel asked tensely.

<Not unless you want to put Jake and Tobias in danger.>

Ax stepped into Jake's sight, blocking their path. <Enough. Release him, and I will not kill you immediately.>

“Nice try, andalite. But if you were willing to risk Tobias' life, you would've brought your Dracon beam. I gotta say, out of all of them, you're my favourite. This here? Now? Elfangor would be so disappointed in you.”

<You have no idea what my brother would or would not be disappointed by. Let him go.>

“And leave myself without a hostage? Yeah, right.”

“Not without a hostage.” I walked into sight, fully human, palms raised. “Me for Tobias.”

<Cassie?> Ax asked sharply. <What are you doing?>

<Yeah, Cassie, this is NOT the plan,> Rachel pointed out.

Temrash, though, merely looked puzzled. “How can you possibly think I'd agree to that? You have value to me alive. Birdy here doesn't. Besides, he's carry-size.”

“Because we all know that you're going to kill Tobias as soon as you don't need him any more. As you say, you don't care about his life. He's worthless as a hostage if cooperation doesn't get him back alive. Ax has hesitated so far only because you don't pose any sort of danger yet. Knowing you have no reason to keep him alive, do you really think he'll let you get out of the forest with him? And if you think you can handle Ax... look up.”

He did so, eyes locking on Rachel's bald eagle morph glaring menacingly at him.

<Hey, don't I get a say in this?> Tobias asked.

“No,” I said. “Now, me... we have a reasonable expectation that you'll want to get me to the yeerk pool alive. And unlike Tobias there, who's just waiting for your attention to drift long enough for him to claw your eyes out, I promise I won't fight you.”

“I have no reason to trust – ”

“Ask Jake if I'll keep that promise.”

His eyes flickered, and he was silent for several seconds. I wondered if he was arguing with Jake. Would Jake plead with him to leave me out of it, keep me safe? Or to take me instead, since I had a much better chance of survival than Tobias?

“No,” he said finally. “See, the thing is, Cassie, your species has a pretty big flaw, in that you're constantly hoping. I don't think any of you Animorphs will attack me. I promise to release Tobias safely once I'm clear, and I know you'll all believe that promise, because you won't dare write him off. Even if it means risking all of you.”

<Will somebody please attack him?> Tobias asked. <I'd rather he breaks my neck than to keep listening to this drivel.>

“I mean, who's going to strike the blow that kills him? You, with your big tender heart? Ax? He and Tobias are like... forest spirit brothers or something, that's not going to happen. Rachel? If there's one person in the world she can check her bloodlust for, it's Tobias. The only one in this group who I think would be remotely capable of that is – ”

<Me?> Marco's giant gorilla hand reached out from behind a tree and grabbed the wrist holding Tobias, lifting Jake clear off the ground. With a cry, Temrash released Tobias, who flapped out of reach. <Good boy. Now hold still.> Marco pressed his other hand against Jake's back for a moment. Then he flung Jake over one shoulder, ignoring his struggles. <How long, Cassie?> he asked me, handing me an empty syringe.

“About two minutes?” I said uncertainly, taking care not to stab myself on the needle. Jake was probably perfectly healthy but that was no reason to go getting his blood inside me. “I had to guess his weight. These sedatives aren't normally used on humans, but they should work the same as on any other mammal.”

“What... what did you do to me?” Temrash asked.

<We're putting you to sleep,> Marco explained. <Nighty-night.>


	15. Chapter 15

Jake did wake up a couple of times before we were sure that Temrash was gone. It was my job to guess, with trembling hands riffling quickly through medical textbooks, how much sedative it was safe to give him. The answer, of course, was none – none was the safe level. I wasn't an anaesthesiologist. I didn't know what I was doing. But we couldn't risk the yeerk getting somebody killed in desperation, or even simply spite, so when he woke, I pumped a little more sedative in to calm him again.

Too much could be fatal. In this instance, too little could be fatal. But eventually, the safe time passed, and when it did, Jake still had a pulse.

We untied him and put him in the recovery position. About half an hour later, he woke.

“... Guys?” He blinked blearily up at us.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Fine. I... oh god, I'm so sorry...”

“It wasn't you, Jake,” I said firmly. “None of it was you.”

“Yeah, I know.” But he didn't look at any of us.

After he'd calmed down a bit and Marco had briefed him on any small changes in his home life, I asked him to come back to the barn with me so that I could give him a quick health check. He pointed out that morphing had probably cleaned any drugs from his system. I insisted that there was no harm in making sure.

My hands trembled as I pressed my dad's stethoscope against Jake's chest and listened for the regular beating of his heart. It was fine, as I expected. I forced myself to listen for several seconds longer than necessary, trying not to flinch when he moved, trying to forget his face as he beat my head against a table until I passed out.

“They were high-ranking yeerks,” Jake announced suddenly into the silence. “They were lined up for new hosts in the Governor's staff. Tom's yeerk was one of them.”

I'd forgotten about Tom. “So Tom – ”

“Has a new yeerk. But he should be safe, over the hospital thing at least.” Jake bit his lip. “Look, Cassie... putting the whole blame thing aside, this team fell apart from a few jibes. The yeerk nearly won because we're not a proper fighting force.”

“I'm not sure that's true. I mean, we've fought together, rescued each other, escaped from spaceships together. Temrash pulled this team apart because he used your memories. He knew what made us tick, our strengths and... and weaknesses, because you did. And that's a good thing. You're our leader, Jake, and he could only take us apart because you can keep us together.”

“What if I can't?”

“You have to. Until the andalites come, we need to stay together.”

Jake nodded. “We need to keep fighting.”


End file.
